Ad security firm Confiant, has closed a $4.1m (£3.2m) Series A equity round funding led by River Bay Investments and Rubicon Venture Capital. Tom Leonard, River Bay Investments’ CEO, will join Confiant co-founders Louis-David Mangin and Jerome Dangu on the board of directors. The funds will further support investments in product innovation and recruitment. The company plans to double its headcount in 2019.

Confiant was founded in 2013 to prevent criminals from hijacking digital advertising. The company’s real-time anti-malware software protects publishers and platforms reputations, revenue, and resources by monitoring and preventing attacks on desktop, mobile, and video ads.

The company’s 2018 Demand Quality Report found that upwards of 500bn malicious and fraudulent impressions were served during 2018 – that’s one out of every 60 programmatic impressions. Confiant works with publishers and platforms including Tribune Media, Internet Brands, Vice Media and Topix, to prevent such attacks.

“For far too long, malware has been a costly plague for the digital ad industry, and malvertising groups are becoming bolder and more sophisticated in their attacks,” said Ari Paparo, CEO and co-founder of Beeswax and one of Confiant’s advisors and customers. “Confiant is the first company to address this issue holistically and make media safe for publishers and consumers, and they have the hacker DNA to beat the bad guys.”